STILLWATER — When Lisa Graziane’s phone lit up with a tornado warning Saturday evening, she was transported back 22 years, to 1998 — the last time a tornado tore through her hometown.
Panic struck.
Graziane, 49, had been sitting on her front porch, chatting and laughing, with her friend and youngest daughter. They looked in front of their home situated on County Road 75. The sky was blue and clear. Then they looked behind the home. The sky was gloomy, and the clouds were moving in a furious circling motion, heading straight toward them.
The National Weather Service confirmed Sunday afternoon that two separate tornadoes hit eastern Saratoga and western Rensselaer counties Saturday. The storm that hit Stillwater was categorized as an EF 1, with winds moving as fast as 100 miles per hour. The storm traveled a quarter of a mile and injured one person. The tornado that hit Schaghticoke was given the same categorization, but traveled 1.25 miles.
Significant damage was done to a number of homes, according to the National Weather Service, and several trees were uprooted. The roofs of the Hoosick Falls elementary and high schools were also damaged.
Graziane’s home was one of those impacted.
Her chimney and a part of her roof were torn off her home, her horse paddocks disappeared, a pole in her barn went missing, the arena behind her home has gaps in the wooden fencing. When she and her family emerged from their basement after the storm passed through, they couldn’t get out of the home — the yard was covered with previously-100-foot trees.
“This was not as bad (as 1998), but still just very trying, it’s mentally draining,” Graziane said.
The suspected tornadoes struck near the site of the region's worst tornado strike in memory.
The May 31, 1998, tornado destroyed or damaged 228 homes, causing an estimated $50 million in damage throughout Mechanicville, Stillwater and Schaghticoke. Only minor injuries were reported but it took a year to rebuild most of the homes.
On Sunday, Graziane was surrounded by support.
“But I have a wonderful group of friends, a great support system,” Graziane said. “I mean before I knew it, my yard was full of people.”
Dan Glogowski was one of those people.
Graziane’s daughter called Glogowski, who lives five minutes up the road, in a panic after the storm hit. He came immediately, and estimates that he was joined by around 50 people.
“Her daughter called me and you could tell something was wrong, because she’s normally pretty calm,” he said. “She could barely put words together, but she just called everyone she knew and everyone showed up.”
Sunday morning, Graziane’s yard was still filled with friends and neighbors. Some were raking her yard, others were chopping and stacking up the fallen trees, some were picking up debris and branches.
But it could have been worse, and that example was right behind Graziane’s property.
The tornado tore through a trailer home on McDermott Road, collapsing the green deck attached to its front, sinking the yellow home to the ground, stripping it of its roof and walls.
The interior back wall of the home was visible from the front yard, a line of decorative fish dangling and swaying in the wind it was suddenly exposed to.
Kara DiVeglia, who lives in Albany now, drove up as soon as she heard the storm hit her family’s plot of land. Bought by her great-grandparents, there are now five homes built on the land by her family members. DiVeglia’s cousin lived in the trailer home, but was luckily visiting family at the home next door with her children when the tornado struck.
“This is the first time that we’ve been personally affected by (a tornado),” DiVeglia said. After the 1998 storm, everything was untouched.
Commotion ensued behind her as volunteers fed trees into a wood chipper, excavators moved across the land to scoop up parts of the home that had become strewn across the yard, and more volunteers cleaned up trash and debris.
Still, DiVeglia and her family are counting their blessings.
“We keep saying the materials can be replaced,” she said. “We’re just lucky that most of us weren’t here.”
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Photos: Tornadoes strike in Stillwater, Schaghticoke - Times Union
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